Apocalypse Soon?

[billvon]

Why is the recovery taking so long? Peak oil theory predicted the housing bubble burst, the recession, and the 2008 oil spike years before they happened. That same theory now posits, for reasons that are quite evident, that the production ceiling on oil will eventually cause another damaging oil spike. It may have already begun. When will you begin to believe the truth?

I believe the truth now; I just don't believe your guesses.

What would it take for me to believe your guesses? You claimed gas prices will double every year starting in 2015; that's a reasonable test. So we will know for sure if you're wrong in 2 years.

All of the other sources combined cannot provide for our current needs. If they could, it would take decades to make the transition.

Fortunately, we have decades of oil and natural gas, and centuries of coal. And rising prices for oil and natural gas will provide an excellent impetus to make that transition.

There is currently a supply glut of natural gas. If we begin to rely more heavily on natural gas, the glut will disappear and it will increase in price just like any commodity.

Yes, and we will stabilize at a significantly higher consumption rate. As happens with any source of energy.

So, naysayers are always wrong and techno optimists are always right? I don't think so. The Titanic turned out to be sinkable.

Yes. Was hardly the end of the world though. When you look at end-of-the-world-due-to-x predictions (where x is starvation, energy depletion, plague etc) every single prediction has been wrong. So that's not a 90%, or a 50%, or even a 25% success rate. That's a zero percent success rate.

A good example of this was "the population bomb," a book I have referenced previously. He used rock-solid (according to him) data that proved that we'd see mass starvation and hundreds of millions of deaths. His claim:

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate."

Let's compare that to:

"All of the other sources combined cannot provide for our current needs. If they could, it would take decades to make the transition. We are already out of time."

Sounds familiar.

Unfortunately, bang for the buck is the important thing. If alternatives are too expensive they can't be much of a solution, can they?

Agreed. Fortunately they are not too expensive. I have an electric vehicle that I recharge by solar power; I could easily afford that. As the technology improves and prices drop that will be true for more and more people.

 

[billvon]

Overdrilling for a quick buck. Then the price drops and it's no longer worth drilling.

If the worst case is "natural gas gets too cheap" then we are in very good shape indeed, since natural gas could replace almost all of our transportation fuel needs.

 

[spidergoat]

If the worst case is "natural gas gets too cheap" then we are in very good shape indeed, since natural gas could replace almost all of our transportation fuel needs.

But it's not worth drilling for if it's cheap. So supply drops, ect.. it's a vicious cycle.

 

[Futilitist]

I believe the truth now; I just don't believe your guesses.

What would it take for me to believe your guesses? You claimed gas prices will double every year starting in 2015; that's a reasonable test. So we will know for sure if you're wrong in 2 years.

The fact that I am right is already apparent. You just can't come to terms with it.

Fortunately, we have decades of oil and natural gas, and centuries of coal.

Unfortunately, saying that does not make it so. You are ignoring the substantial evidence that your statement above is false.

And rising prices for oil and natural gas will provide an excellent impetus to make that transition.

Rising prices for oil and natural gas will wreck the economy. There is no impetus great enough to make transitions that are physically impossible.

Yes. Was hardly the end of the world though. When you look at end-of-the-world-due-to-x predictions (where x is starvation, energy depletion, plague etc) every single prediction has been wrong. So that's not a 90%, or a 50%, or even a 25% success rate. That's a zero percent success rate.

We have covered this already. The collapse of modern industrial civilization is a one time event, thus your statistical approach is meaningless. By definition collapse will have a 0% prediction rate until it actually happens. If it happens according to my predictions, I will have a 100% success rate. If this is the best argument you can come up with to debunk peak oil theory, we may be in more trouble than even I thought.

A good example of this was "the population bomb," a book I have referenced previously. He used rock-solid (according to him) data that proved that we'd see mass starvation and hundreds of millions of deaths. His claim:

"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate."

Let's compare that to:

"All of the other sources combined cannot provide for our current needs. If they could, it would take decades to make the transition. We are already out of time."

Sounds familiar.

So?

Agreed. Fortunately they are not too expensive. I have an electric vehicle that I recharge by solar power; I could easily afford that. As the technology improves and prices drop that will be true for more and more people.

This is a perfect example of confusing energy and technology. We were talking about the cost of alternative energy sources, not the cars that consume energy. And your personal good fortune is not relevant to the overall situation. Most people can not easily afford what you can. Perhaps you could subsidize the purchase of electric cars for those who can't afford them.

---Futilitist

 

[Russ_Watters]

PS---The thread that very few people on this site want to discuss rationally has just received 80,810 views in one month!

I've checked in on it a handful of times. Apocolypseites are entertaining to me, but I don't really see much useful discussion here. I don't consider rational discussion of an irrational topic to be possible. Peak Oil is the worst kind of backwards-only looking "prediction". The apocalyptic predictions fail, are adjusted, fail again, are adjusted again, "lather, rinse repeat". Trouble is, the internet is getting to be old enough that the obsolete and discarded wrong predictions can be tracked through time.

My biggest complaints:
1. Not adjusting costs for inflation in their analysis.
2. Not considering that population growth is decreasing.
3. Not considering that the drop in energy intensity corresponds to an increase in standard of living for developed nations (standard of living can (is) rise(ing) while the use of energy declines.)

I am curious, though about how/if/when Peak Oil enthusiasts will deal with the shale oil/gas revolution. I haven't seen people deal yet with the meteoric rise in US oil and gas production, which is directly contrary to Peak Oil. It should have been impossible. If you haven't heard, the US is poised to become the new Saudia Arabia and North America the new Middle East: http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/14/opinion/ghitis-obama-energy/index.html
In 15 years, we may be selling oil to Saudi Arabia!

Global peak oil is already 17 years late and if the US reaches a new peak in 10 years, it'll blow the original US prediction away by half a century.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...-latest-bentek-energy-forecast-169162796.html

Don't get me wrong - oil is a finite resource and we'll eventually run out. But the decline is being predicted way too early and the apocalyptic predictions are way overblown.

 

[billvon]

But it's not worth drilling for if it's cheap. So supply drops, ect.. it's a vicious cycle.

Most commodities, including oil, have seen such cycles due to lag times in supply/demand. In general the market is pretty good at regulating them. Like I said, if we have so much natural gas that we will regularly see gluts, we are in very good shape indeed - because our economic cycles, rather than an inherent scarcity, is determining supply.

 

[billvon]

Rising prices for oil and natural gas will wreck the economy. There is no impetus great enough to make transitions that are physically impossible.

And again, factual evidence proves you wrong. EV's can move people. Natural gas and coal can move freight. Thus your claim that it is physically impossible holds no weight, and your lack of ability to understand how it can happen will not keep people from doing it.

We have covered this already. The collapse of modern industrial civilization is a one time event, thus your statistical approach is meaningless. By definition collapse will have a 0% prediction rate until it actually happens. If it happens according to my predictions, I will have a 100% success rate.

Yep. And you have the same odds at being correct as all the people who predicted the world would end on December 21, 2012. They, like you, were guaranteed a 100% success rate if it happened. How'd that go?

This is a perfect example of confusing energy and technology. We were talking about the cost of alternative energy sources, not the cars that consume energy.

I was talking about cost. My car cost less than your typical SUV, and costs far less to fuel even without a solar power system.

However, if you now want to argue that people cannot afford SUV's - be my guest. You no doubt have your own set of facts about that as well.

Edited to add - here's a news story on how we will change over, presented for your denial:
=================

Trucks Run on Natural Gas in Pickens Clean Energy Drive: Freight
By Alex Kowalski - Feb 28, 2012 9:01 PM PT

A Made-in-America fuel source may soon be moving tractor-trailers across the U.S.

Carriers like Ryder System Inc. (R) are buying long-haul trucks that run on natural gas, around $1.50 a gallon cheaper than diesel. As adoption grows, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) and Westport Innovations Inc. (WPT) plan to profit from a marriage of technology and domestic energy that has the political blessing of President Barack Obama and the financial backing of T. Boone Pickens.

Using natural gas could cut fuel costs by more than $20,000 for a truck traveling a typical long-haul distance of 100,000 miles (161,000 kilometers) a year, according to JMP Securities LLC’s Shawn Severson. Shares in Clean Energy and Westport are up at least 30 percent since the end of last year.

“Natural gas is green in terms of the environment, but the real green is in the money,” said Severson, a San Francisco- based clean-technology analyst. “If you do not have this fuel in your fleet for whatever percentage is appropriate, you’re going to be at an economic disadvantage.”

Clean Energy is tackling the so-called chicken-or-egg problem by building the fueling depots that natural gas-powered fleets require before they can proliferate. Such a network sets in motion part of a four-year-old plan by Pickens aimed at cutting the nation’s fuel costs, reducing reliance on overseas energy and generating jobs.
‘Low-Hanging Fruit’

“It’s a helluva deal for the country,” Pickens, the 83- year old founder and chairman of Dallas-based BP Capital LLC, said in a telephone interview. He’s also Clean Energy’s largest shareholder, owning 23 percent as of yesterday. “It’s low- hanging fruit. It’s just sitting there,” he said.

Revenue at Clean Energy climbed 58 percent to $72 million in the three months ended Sept. 30 from the same period in 2010.
================================

 

[Russ_Watters]

Cheaper? Not a chance. Nothing will ever get cheaper, ever again.

Um....natural gas is less than half its peak in 2008, despite a massive increase in production, with no end in sight.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3035us3m.htm

And with that and the explosion in natural gas electrical production, the average cost of electricity has dropped a few percent in the past two years: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/

 

[R1D2]

In my post #190 I showed how there is now a ceiling on economic growth due to oil spikes being triggered each time demand reaches the current production maximum of around 74 million barrels a day. As of today oil prices have just risen for the 7th straight week. The last time that happened was in mid 2007 at the beginning of the last monster spike that ended in 2008, a few months before the stock markets crashed. These oil spikes will kill any economic growth that gets any momentum. Thus, it is physically impossible for the economy to recover. Yet you insist that the economy will recover eventually . How can it?

---Futilitist

I will start a new thread you may see what I have to say there

 

[Futilitist]

I've checked in on it a handful of times. Apocolypseites are entertaining to me, but I don't really see much useful discussion here. Peak Oil is the worst kind of backwards-only looking "prediction". The apocalyptic predictions fail, are adjusted, fail again, are adjusted again, "lather, rinse repeat".

I disagree that peak oil is the worst kind of backwards-only looking "prediction". I would agree, however, that there hasn't been much useful discussion here. But welcome to the discussion, in any event.

My biggest complaints:
1. Not adjusting costs for inflation in their analysis.

If you mean in terms of historical oil prices, adjusting for inflation is circular reasoning, since energy, not money, is the heart of the economy.

2. Not considering that population growth is decreasing.

I have presented evidence that population growth is decreasing, and that is consistent with the theory. David Price mentions it and provides a graph.

3. Not considering that the drop in energy intensity corresponds to an increase in standard of living for developed nations (standard of living can (is) rise(ing) while the use of energy declines.)

Efficiency is not energy. Developed nations waste a lot of energy. More improvements can likely be made. But the economy has not become decoupled from energy. That would be physically impossible.

I am curious, though about how Peak Oil enthusiasts will deal with the shale oil/gas revolution. I haven't seen people deal yet with the meteoric rise in US oil and gas production, which is directly contrary to Peak Oil. It should have been impossible. Trouble is, the internet is getting to be old enough that the obsolete and discarded wrong predictions can be tracked through time.

You describe shale oil/gas as a "revolution". You say we have had a "meteoric rise" in US oil and gas production. It all sounds great, but hyperbole does not equal energy.

And fracking is clearly not "impossible" and peak oil theory never claimed it was. One of the expectations of peak oil theory is that rising energy costs will make formerly marginal production more economically viable. Fracking is way more expensive than conventional oil and gas production, so it doesn't solve the problem at all. It just slightly delays the inevitable.

---Futilitist

 

[Russ_Watters]

Efficiency is not energy. Developed nations waste a lot of energy. More improvements can likely be made. But the economy has not become decoupled from energy. That would be physically impossible.

It doesn't sound like you are aware of the concept of "energy intensity". Did you know that energy use per $ of GDP and energy use per capita have both been dropping for decades in the US?
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/analysis/eii_total_energy.html
https://www.google.com/publicdata/e...n&hl=en&q=united states energy use per capita

You describe shale oil/gas as a "revolution". You say we have had a "meteoric rise" in US oil and gas production. It all sounds great, but hyperbole does not equal energy.

Are you not aware of the recent stats on US oil/gas production? I figured a peak oil enthusiast would keep up to date. 2012 saw the largest increase in US oil production (on a BPD basis) ever. That's staggering and it isn't hyperbole, it is a statistic: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/12/us-oil-production-record-rise-in-2012/

I don't see stats out yet for gas in 2012, but it was up 6% in 2011.

And fracking is clearly not "impossible" and peak oil theory never claimed it was. One of the expectations of peak oil theory is that rising energy costs will make formerly marginal production more economically viable.

I've only ever seen bell curves from peak oil enthusiasts. A decades-later large increase in production fits very badly to a bell curve.

 

[Futilitist]

And again, factual evidence proves you wrong. EV's can move people. Natural gas and coal can move freight. Thus your claim that it is physically impossible holds no weight, and your lack of ability to understand how it can happen will not keep people from doing it.

Yes, things other than oil can move people and freight. They just cannot move as many people or as much freight for as low a cost as oil. People could push their cars. That is physically possible, too, I suppose, but the economy will not run very well under those conditions.

Yep. And you have the same odds at being correct as all the people who predicted the world would end on December 21, 2012. They, like you, were guaranteed a 100% success rate if it happened. How'd that go?

I explained before that your statistical approach is meaningless. There is no way to determine the odds of a one time event occurring within a given timeframe.

I was talking about cost. My car cost less than your typical SUV, and costs far less to fuel even without a solar power system.

However, if you now want to argue that people cannot afford SUV's - be my guest.

You are correct that people can afford SUVs. Your implication is that it would be easy to replace the gasoline powered fleet with an electric powered one because electric cars are cheap. Unfortunately, most people have already bought SUVs, therefore they can't immediately turn around and now purchase an electric vehicle because they spent the transportation part of their budget already.

---Futilitist

 

[Russ_Watters]

Unfortunately, I have been hit by the can't-post-links bug in the forum, but the gist of my response:

1. I would have expected a peak oil enthusiast to be up-to date on the stats. The US has seen huge - unprecedented even - rises in production of natural gas and oil recent years. That's not hyperbole, that's factual statistics.
2. It doesn't sound like you are aware of the concept of "energy intensity". In terms of energy per $ of GDP and energy per person, our energy intensity has been declining for decades. Our standard of living is rising while our need for energy is falling.
3. I don't think I've ever seen a Peak Oil prediction graph that wasn't a bell curve. A huge increase in production, decades after a peak doesn't fit very well to a bell curve.

 

[Futilitist]

Unfortunately, I have been hit by the can't-post-links bug in the forum, but the gist of my response:

1. I would have expected a peak oil enthusiast to be up-to date on the stats. The US has seen huge - unprecedented even - rises in production of natural gas and oil recent years. That's not hyperbole, that's factual statistics.

I am very up to date on the stats. What makes you think I am not? I said that your statement was hyperbolic:

I am curious, though about how/if/when Peak Oil enthusiasts will deal with the shale oil/gas revolution. I haven't seen people deal yet with the meteoric rise in US oil and gas production, which is directly contrary to Peak Oil. It should have been impossible. If you haven't heard, the US is poised to become the new Saudia Arabia and North America the new Middle East: http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/14/opinio...rgy/index.html
In 15 years, we may be selling oil to Saudi Arabia!

Yep, your statement was hyperbolic.

2. It doesn't sound like you are aware of the concept of "energy intensity". In terms of energy per $ of GDP and energy per person, our energy intensity has been declining for decades. Our standard of living is rising while our need for energy is falling.

I am aware of the concept of energy intensity. Why would you say I wasn't? Do you think that our energy intensity could decline to zero while our standard of living just keeps on rising?

3. I don't think I've ever seen a Peak Oil prediction graph that wasn't a bell curve. A huge increase in production, decades after a peak doesn't fit very well to a bell curve.

Really?

It still looks like a bell curve to me. This graph puts your "revolutionary" "meteoric rise" in US oil and gas production into proper perspective.

---Futilitist

 

[billvon]

Yes, things other than oil can move people and freight. They just cannot move as many people or as much freight for as low a cost as oil.

Correct. Transportation will get more expensive, specifically aviation. Trucks/cars - not so much.

People could push their cars.

Sure they could. But why would they when plugging them in is easier and more effective?

You are correct that people can afford SUVs. Your implication is that it would be easy to replace the gasoline powered fleet with an electric powered one because electric cars are cheap. Unfortunately, most people have already bought SUVs, therefore they can't immediately turn around and now purchase an electric vehicle because they spent the transportation part of their budget already.

Very true. You'd need to make the change over ten years (average turnover time for cars in the US.) Fortunately, the US alone has enough oil to get us through that period of time.

 

[Futilitist]

Very true. You'd need to make the change over ten years (average turnover time for cars in the US.) Fortunately, the US alone has enough oil to get us through that period of time.

The US alone does not produce enough oil to get us through ten years. We don't even produce enough to get us through 1 day, let alone 10 years! The US consumes around 18 million barrels a day and produces only about 6.4 million barrels.

---Futilitist

 

[billvon]

The US alone does not produce enough oil to get us through ten years. We don't even produce enough to get us through 1 day, let alone 10 years! The US consumes around 18 million barrels a day and produces only about 6.4 million barrels.

Yep. And production is going up fast. In 2013 we will hit 7.3 million barrels a day (Compare that to 4 million barrels a day in 2010.)

We have about 200 billion barrels of conventional (i.e. not tar sands or oil shale) technically recoverable reserves, which means estimated reserves that we have the technology to recover via conventional means. That's 30 years supply if all we use is our own oil, which of course we are not doing. As the oil gets harder and harder to recover its price will increase until other sources (like natural gas) are cheaper, at which point they will take over as our primary transportation fuel. Not because people want to be green, but just because it's cheaper than oil. Pretty simple economics.

 

[Futilitist]

Yep. And production is going up fast. In 2013 we will hit 7.3 million barrels a day (Compare that to 4 million barrels a day in 2010.)

So we can produce 7.3 million barrels a day, but we use about 18 million barrels a day, and you don't see any problem there? OK.

We have about 200 billion barrels of conventional (i.e. not tar sands or oil shale) technically recoverable reserves, which means estimated reserves that we have the technology to recover via conventional means. That's 30 years supply if all we use is our own oil, which of course we are not doing. As the oil gets harder and harder to recover its price will increase until other sources (like natural gas) are cheaper, at which point they will take over as our primary transportation fuel. Not because people want to be green, but just because it's cheaper than oil. Pretty simple economics.

Economics always sounds so simple.

---Futilitist

 

[billvon]

So we can produce 7.3 million barrels a day, but we use about 18 million barrels a day, and you don't see any problem there?

Not when we can buy oil from other countries, no. (Especially given that the amount we have to buy is going down every year.)

 

[Futilitist]

Not when we can buy oil from other countries, no. (Especially given that the amount we have to buy is going down every year.)

So what you are saying is that we can produce all the oil we need for the next 30 years all by ourselves, as long as we can keep buying it from other countries. OK.

---Futilitist